Grandmaster B Adhiban got off to a flying start at the Aeroflot International Chess tournament in Moscow, as he defeated higher seed Markus Ragger of Austria in the opening round of the 'A' group. Adhiban was a class act with his white pieces as he went for his trusted variation in the Slav defense and cruised home in a tactical battle against Ragger, who is around 100 points more in Elo rating.It turned out to be a mixed start for the higher ranked Indians in one of the strongest open tournaments of the world. National Champion Abhijeet Gupta also scored a fine technical win against Russian Grandmaster Aleksei Pridorozhni, while Parimajan Negi and Krishnan Sasikiran were held to draws by lower ranked opponents Daniel Alsina Leal of Spain and Yaroslav Zherebukh of Ukraine.G N Gopal went down fighting against Sergei Zhigalko of Belarus, while similar fates were in store for final GM norm aspirant M R Venkatesh and M Shyam Sundar.On the brighter side, Vidit Gujrathi came out with sound positional chess to hold former world champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia to a creditable draw, while S P Sethuraman also did well to hold Ildar Khairullin of Russia. Amongst other Indians in the fray, Sandipan Chanda was held to a draw by young Russian Daniil Dubov, while D Harika opened her account after signing peace with Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan.In the 'B' group, S Nitin recorded the biggest upset, accounting for Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco of Romania. Another higher ranked GM, Artashes Minasian of Armenia, also found the going tough as he lost to Akshayraj Kore, while national women's champion Mary Ann Gomes was in her elements as she beat Pogos Nakhapetiane of Russia.Double GM norm holder Sahaj Grover, the highest rated Indian in the fray in this section, however did not get the desired start as he misplayed a winning endgame and was held to a draw by Chinese girl Huang Qian.